No Bedtime Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

“If I could have done it myself, I would have already done it: pried open my ribs and etched the Word onto my heart’s beating chambers. But it seemed my ex-gay counsellors were the only ones with enough skill and experience to wield the scalpel.” – Garrard Conley (Boy Erased.)

"Terror doesn't change people from gay to straight. It just hurts innocent people." - DaShanne Stokes

“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” - Khalil Gibran

Now, like most LGBT folks here in the UK and around the world, I am appalled that the British Government has done a U-turn with regards to the banning of conversion therapy, except for transgender people; the implication is that it is more natural to deal with gender identity problems since they are a mistake that deserves to be rectified, whereas being lesbian, gay or bisexual is a matter of lifestyle choice... which, of course, it isn't.

It is incredible that such naivety and subsequent abuse of Human Rights in any so-called 'civilised' society should persist even into the 21st century, although as a measure of political expediency it should come as no surprise. God forbid, certain powers that be among the electorate, especially those whose religious agendas see the LGBT ethos as an enemy life force, should be so offended as to put their voting rights on permanent hold...

This post-poem also appears on my gay poetry blog today; although feedback suggests that although more LGBT readers browse both blogs now, a significant number don’t, especially those who use a shared computer and feel obliged to remain ‘closet’ for whatever reason.

To those (relatively few) readers who have emailed me in the past to complain about gay-interest poems appearing here as well as my gay-interest poetry blog, I can only repeat what I’ve said so many times before, that a poem is a poem is a poem just as a person is a person is a person, regardless of how critics may choose to chew over any bare bones.

NO BEDTIME STORY

I lost out on many pleasures of youth,
mind-body-spirit afraid in those dark days
to raise its head above a thick fog
of such misinformation and homophobia
as likely to appeal to those bigots
around the world to whom prejudice comes
as naturally as breathing, sad souls
whose personal space so damaged by the cut
and thrust of life, they must lash out

Better late than never, I saw the light,
emerged from my lonely closet into a new day,
thinking I needs must tell the bigots
that I’m gay, or else how to even attempt
any getting them to see the awful hurt
they inflict on the likes of me, no less a person
in my own right or in any godly sight
for being honest with myself, family and friends,
no matter how strange my story sounds...?

Though I regret the coward in me that hid
myself away from the dazzling light of home truth
during those early years of self-discovery,
revealing, ticking off a checklist of scary things
I had neither confidence nor vocabulary
then to express, unable to confide in anyone,
fearing verbal or physical abuse or, worse,
conversion therapy’s crude attempts to reshape me
in an image tailored to its host ‘society’

By the time I felt able to tell the world I’m gay,
I was less afraid to look it n the eye, could argue
the case for mind-body-spirit, heart-and soul,
confident enough to resist being thrust into freefall
yet again, closet days scratched into my brain,
a hurt I’d vowed nothing and no one would make me
endure again, nor any need, since now all-human,
for all its flaws, none of which include such desires
as lighting love-and-freedom’s home fires

Surely, a twenty-first century deserves far better
than shades of a bigotry hell bent on undermining
the more positive-thinking mind-body-spirit
aspiring to a global consensus on peace and love,
no matter its bias in politics and religions, 
arguing against a personal space always seeking
a kinder place, one less inclined to dismiss
its take on life as but a measure of such behaviour
as well-deserving contempt and censure..?

Humanity is no favourite novel, but comprising
real people battling real odds, for better or worse...
and well-deserving due respect for our efforts
no matter who we are, whatever sexual orientation
best defines us as we grow into our lives,
learning as much about our true selves and each other
as the world we share, one deserving no less care
than flowers sown in field or garden by human hands
or blown there by some heavenly wind...

Let others in the world make of us what they will,
but never forget we are a common humanity,
like it or not, and should it nurse any such reservation
as it needs must pass on for any good reason
other than society’s general well-being and salvation,
then let it keep its big mouth well and truly shut,
further research its grievances before endorsing wrongs
that have made outsiders of selective insiders for centuries
for no other reason than because, because...

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022